martedì 11 ottobre 2016

Chapter 3 Democracy and Liberalism - leftism erik ritter kuehnelt

It is wrong to say, “Mr. Green is very democratic; on his trips he sits down for lunch with his chauffeur.” He is, rather, a friend of simple people, and so is appropriately called demophile, not democratic.Read more at location 339

Here it must be remembered that, later on, aristocracy also came to mean not a form of government but the highest social layer. The term republic came to mean every (external) form of government that is non-monarchical and “public.”Read more at location 345

GOOD FORMS: BAD FORMS: Monarchy, the rule of one man in the interest of the common good. Tyranny, the rule of one man to his own advantage. Aristocracy, the rule of a group in the interest of the common good. Oligarchy, the rule of a group for their own benefit. Republic or Polity, the rule of the better part of the people in the interest of the common good. Democracy, the rule of the worse part of the people for their own benefit.Read more at location 352

One school insists that only direct democracy is real democracy, whereas elected delegates form an oligarchy with a time limit. There exists a so-called “oligarchic school” of this interpretation of democracy and its foremost opponents were Vilfredo Pareto, Gaëtano Mosca and Roberto Michels (an Italianized former German Socialist). All three might conceivably be called fascist sympathizers, but it is probably the intellectual and realistic climate of Italy, so hostile to all forms of illusions, which influenced their critical thinking.Read more at location 361